Pioneers and Prominent People of Saskatchewan

 

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Jackson, who conducted a butcher shop on Scarth Street, where the King's Hotel now stands. Later they acquired the beef contracts for the Indian Industrial School and the Mounted Police Barracks, from W. H. Sinclair, of Battleford. In 1894 Mr. Darke bought out Mr. Balderson's interest in the business and exchanged the property acquired from Mr. Jackson with D. A. MacDonald for a lot farther north on Scarth Street, where he erected an up-to-date butcher shop. He became engaged at that time in the export cattle business, and during his buying trips through the country had some interesting experiences. About that time he made a record journey to Willow Bunch. There was then no settlement from ten miles south of Regina until the Willow Bunch settlement was reached, a distance of something over a hundred miles. There were neither roads nor trails, nor marks to guide, and leaving Regina at four o'clock in the morning he covered the entire distance in his buggy before midnight. The following day Mr. Darke drove out amongst the ranchers, bought 200 head of cattle, 300 head of sheep and after another night's rest set off on his return to Regina. In 1906 he sold out his business and bought the corner of Eleventh Ave. and Cornwall, selling a portion of the property to the Masonic fraternity and, on the remainder building what was probably the first up-to-date office building in the prairie country. He then engaged in the buying and selling of property and is rated as one of Saskatchewan's most substantial citizens.

 

Mr. Darke has served the community in a variety of public capacities. He was for nine years an alderman of the city, and in 1899 was elected mayor; a member of the Regina Board of Trade, director of the Regina Industrial Exhibition, one of the Board of Governors of the Sanatorium at Qu'Appelle and a director of the Y.M.C.A. He is also on the Board of Management of the Regina (Methodist) College, to

 

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Pioneers and Prominent People of Saskatchewan